Age & Beauty
Featuring stories by Emma Jane Unsworth, Nate Beyer, Susan Buttenwieser, Melissa McDaniel, and Kristin Kelley; performed by actors Denise Poirier, Waltrudis Buck, Alex C. Ferrill, Elizabeth Murray and Kristen Calgaro. Hosted by Andrew Lloyd-Jones at KGB Bar on 2nd April 2013.
Losing Allen
by Nate Beyer
I hear my daughter on the line from California, and she's talking, telling me something about the job she has, or might have soon, or could have, if conditions are right. It would be a boon that would allow her to augment what she brings in from her “artistic pursuits.” A sculptress! A nice girl from Queens has apparently given birth to a sculptress
Closer to Norway
by Emma Jane Unsworth
I saw her before she saw me. She was standing at the gate, hesitating, a finger on her lip, her eyes boring into the gravel. Like the figure I’d seen so many times. I blinked and blinked again. She was buttoned up in her navy pea coat, gripping a small bag, her hair scraped back into a bun. I knew she was deciding whether or not to bolt; whether to just get back in her car and drive back to Lerwick and wait for the six o’clock ferry back to the mainland. Message me when she got home and say she’d come down with something. Terribly sorry. Next year, perhaps
If
by Susan Buttenwieser
Ass got Sonny out of bed every morning. He thought about it all day long. And if he never laid eyes on the crack of Denise’s peeking out from the top of her jeans as she bent down to get some Spackle in Carr’s Hardware on a drizzling April morning, things might have turned out differently
Patsy Says
by Melissa McDaniel
Now some old birds in Cornville would just about lay down and die when it came time for their husbands to join Lord Jesus up in Heav'n, praise his holy name. But Betty Pitts was not some bird. No sir. She had plenty of life left in her, and she was determined to use every last bit of it to win Miss Cornville Senior Beauty Pageant the third year in a row.
You Can Be The Boss
by Kristin Kelley
The first time I heard Joe DiVolto’s name it was clouded in an air of dread and disgust. Their eyes said that they didn’t envy me at all. Someone wrote his New York City extension down on a canary yellow post-it note and slapped it in front of me. They suggested that I use the conference room, because it was probably going to take awhile. I stared out of the 17th floor window for a long while, watching the San Diego Padres warm up their talentless team in Petco Park. I promised myself a drink and I picked up the phone.